


You do not have to be good.

by newtypeshadow



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied Poe Dameron/Finn, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Pre-Slash, Stormtrooper Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 09:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10088852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newtypeshadow/pseuds/newtypeshadow
Summary: FN-2187 had been good, before Jakku. One of the best.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title isn't perfect so much as an excuse to use a line from Mary Oliver's amazing poem "[Wild Geese](http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html)."

FN-2187 had been good, before Jakku. One of the best. Top of his class.

He wasn’t the best at anything, but he was second best at everything, and everyone knew and respected him for it. FN-2187 was the First Order’s stormtrooper ideal, everything a good soldier should be. His squad mates admired him. Trusted him. Knew he was loyal, focused, determined. Always came through in a pinch, FN-2187. His superiors gave him good marks, recommended him for leadership in training missions, and his groups always excelled. His squad relied on him because they knew they could, and he inspired them to work hard—and they got noticed.

Captain Phasma sent his squadron on the two-squadron mission accompanying Kylo Ren to Jakku even though they’d never been in combat before—they were that good, _all_ of them good, FN-2187 their strong and beating heart.

Until his broke.

The memory haunts him. His squad, people he trusted, people he laughed with—shooting civilians. Efficient as a simulation, they fanned out and suppressed and shot down. But these were children screaming, old women dropping, civilians bleeding dry sand into mush. No one was mindless with rage like in sims. No one was armored, no one was attacking, screaming angry battle cries. No, these people were crying and running for their lives. Even those with blasters merely issued cover fire, standard procedure when your team—your town—just needs more time to flee. In their place, FN-2187 would have done the same for his team.

Then Slip jerked beside him and FN-2187 followed him down, held him as he scarred FN-2187’s pristine visor with blood (not a sim, there was no blood in sims) and went as still and limp as the doll burnt with blaster fire meters away, its child’s dead hand reaching for it.

FN-2187 had never failed a mission (test, simulation, exercise) in his life (but was his life like that child’s before the First Order arrived? Did his parents’ blood muddy stormtrooper boots as they tried to flee?) and yet he was failing this, his first real mission, what would make him a man of the Order in truth, what would earn him his stripes.

He raised his blaster…and couldn’t make himself shoot. Stumbled, couldn’t shut out what his team had done, _was doing_ around him, what Captain Phasma expected him to do on this battlefield (but it’s not a battlefield, not a battle, it’s a civilian massacre of _families_ ), couldn’t shut out what the family he made and drew around himself had done, the riotous jeering and joy exploding through his comms at every turn.

FN-2187 fell in line when told. Raised his blaster when told. Wouldn’t shoot when told. Prayed no one noticed his failure in this, his mission, his future in the First Order. He knew he had to get out. He was reconditioned once—his first memories of the Order, knew objectively every child went straight to conditioning when inducted. It helped them adjust to life in the Order, not being able to remember where they were taken from. FN-2187 remembered enough to know he’d never go back to that; he never wanted to forget again, especially not this resolution never to kill for the First Order. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. It wasn’t right.

And yet it was tempting to forget: the horror of this field, the betrayal of the Order who raised him, raised his squadron, raised his family (though he knew he’d gotten too close to his squadron, knew that calling them his brothers and sisters in his head was against the rules); tempting to forget he wasn’t trained to fight for peace and justice as the First Order claimed, but to massacre civilians with no second thoughts. 

He felt like he was dying inside his helmet. Those familiar voices, the voices of his siblings (but they’re not siblings. The Order is all, the only thing he must love and offer loyalty and allegiance to, fight for and die for. FN-2187 himself is responsible for the pain roiling inside his gut; he cared for these people too much)—he needed them out of his head. There was a kill count competition, points for houses burned to rubble, a mental scorecard verbally tallied as they trooped to decontamination and the mess. And FN-2187 couldn’t process this, couldn’t think inside his helmet, couldn’t suck in enough air through his filters, through the mask that was part of a brotherhood now stained with the memory of how he must have appeared to those dying civilians. His armor, once comforting, was a sarcophagus now; and if he died, like Slip, Phasma would leave him to rot inside it where he fell—like Slip.

He ripped off his helmet, sucked in recycled air and silence and the cool against his sweat-drenched skin—

—and so of course Captain Phasma caught him, of course she’d noticed his poor performance, of course she knew it was him and not his “malfunctioning” blaster. Of course she told him to report to reconditioning, and left confident he’d follow orders—FN-2187 always followed orders. FN-2187 was an exemplary Trooper, a poster boy if ever they had one. FN-2187 was just broken, needed a tune up; he’d fall back in line.

But FN-2187 could not shoot down innocent civilians—and he didn't want to, never wanted to. And reconditioning would make him want to, make him relish it, make him forget himself, and he wouldn’t. That was a line he wouldn’t cross.

FN-2187 made a choice then, made a series of choices that brought him a name (Finn), an identity and a life of his own (with the Resistance, if he wants, or anywhere else in the galaxy he needs a ride, if he wants); that brought him friends (Poe Dameron, Rey, BB-8, Han Solo—kind of—and Chewie—kind of), and maybe something more than friends (if he’s reading things right, if he’s reading Poe right, if he’s reading Black Squadron and BB-8 right); and Finn finds that among these people, this _Resistance_ —the enemies of all he grew up being told—is a place for him, finally, _finally_ , to be not just a good soldier, but more: a good man.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my first foray into writing Stormpilot! ^_^ I've been in love with this pairing a while, and finally dredged up the courage to write it.
> 
> Comments are wonderful, kudos are welcome, encouragement of all kinds is appreciated. Thank you for reading! <3


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